To Build a Home

16 | Moving On

For the first time since I had arrived at Windber, the house was empty. The late afternoon sunlight poured into every room like a house-shaped jar of honey. I wanted to swim in the rising golden mist, become weightless, and drown in its warmth. Maybe then I wouldn't feel so alone.

Noah attached himself to my leg in the foyer. He was probably also feeling the emptiness, although he didn't have the words to express it. I ruffled his hair and had him chase me around the house, filling every room with our laughter and chaos. After several circles, we ended up back in the foyer, at the bottom of the stairs, out of breath and exhausted.

I was tucking Noah in for a nap when Darren texted me. I won't be at the house tonight, he said. I knew that he was starting to get overwhelmed with the business, or maybe he didn't want to face the fact that Charlie was, in some way, gone because of him. Whatever the reason, I didn't want to know. So I put my phone away without responding.

When I closed the door to Noah's room, I noticed movement in the master bedroom. The tablet was still on the floor, the bright colors of Noah's cartoon jumping off the screen. I picked it up and turned it off, threw it on the bed. I looked around at the room, no longer afraid of the stillness or the fullness of it. There was no time like the present to empty it.

First, I removed the piles of clothing on the bed so I could strip the sheets and put them on top of the overflowing hamper. Then I took a handful of hanging clothes from the closet, one after another, after another, and stacked them on the bed. I removed the shirts and pants from their hangers and folded and separated them into piles. I continued like this for a while, until the closet was just two rows of empty hangers and shoes and the bed looked like a colorful cotton mountain in the middle of the room.

Noah woke up from his nap and appeared in the master bedroom when I was folding a Baker Brothers t-shirt. I decided to set it aside for myself on the nightstand. Noah grasped at the sleeves draping over the edge of the bed and pulled any he could catch like fashion Jenga. A pile came tumbling down on him before I could intervene. I dug through the pile to find his small, confused body in the cotton rubble.

"Let's go to the store and get some boxes," I said to him in my arms.

We stopped at the drive-through and ate dinner in the parking lot of the hardware store. I was half expecting Darren's truck to pull up as I watched customers come and go and ate french fries with the radio blasting Disney's greatest hits. He never did. I looked at my phone and there were no new messages.

Inside the store, Noah sat in the front of the cart. I pushed him around for twenty minutes until I found the moving supplies aisle. I grabbed one of the flat pieces of cardboard from the stack and attempted to fold it into a box. I followed the directions printed on the back, but with each fold, I got further and further away from what looked like a box. Noah squirmed in the front of the cart as I folded behind him, so I let him out and told him not to wander. He found bags of packing foam on the bottom shelf and was occupied punching at them with his tiny fists.

"Excuse me, sir," I said when an employee passed the aisle. "Can you help me?" I tucked one flap under another just as a third flap came undone. I was on my knees, the cardboard collapsing onto the concrete floor.

The kid was in his early twenties, cute, with light shaggy hair sticking out of his ill-fitting uniform hat. "Do you need a lot? It will be hard to fit in your car if you fold them now."

"If you could just show me how to fold one, I'll do the rest at home." I stood up and handed him the cardboard. I was sweating.

He took the cardboard I had been working on and inspected it. "You really did a number on this one," he said. He tossed it aside and grabbed a fresh piece. He talked me through every fold until I felt confident I could replicate the process. Noah joined us and tapped the finished box like a drum, believing he was helping. "I think your daddy finally got it," he said to Noah. He looked at me and smiled, friendly and innocent.

"Oh, no. I'm not––" I didn't finish the sentence. I looked at Noah, tapping at the box, happy. I realized it wasn't going to be the last time people would make the same mistake. Strangers, teachers, friends. Suddenly the rest of Noah's life flashed before my eyes. I thought of all the firsts Phil and Theresa would miss. And seconds and thirds. And when eventually I would stop correcting people. I began to cry.

The employee asked me if everything was ok and I nodded, turning away. I began stacking cardboard into the cart and let Noah play with the folded box on the floor. The employee backed away. I continued to cry at the register and in the parking lot, only stopping halfway into the drive when Noah started singing along to the radio.

Back at the house, my well of tears was finally dry. I placed the stack of cardboard on the bedroom floor. I put Noah and some of his toys in the empty box the store employee had folded for me. "Let's see if I can do this," I said to Noah, an unfolded box in my hands. His fingers clung to the edge of his box as he stuck his head above the top to see me. Then he disappeared. The box shook with his excited movement.

I wrestled with the cardboard, following the employee's directions, but it didn't snap into place as quickly. After three attempts, the cardboard was worn, but it resembled a box. When all of the cardboard was folded, each box better than the last, I stacked the clothes inside and labeled them. Men's pants. Women's tops. Dresses. Ties. Socks. I lined the boxes between the far wall and the bed until half of the room was storage. I almost forgot Noah was inside a box until he threw a stuffed animal in the air and it landed on the floor.

I scooped him up and grabbed the t-shirt on the nightstand, proud of my accomplishment and ready to call it a night. That's when I saw Phil's wedding ring. I had completely forgotten about finding it the night I had tried putting drunk Darren into the bed. I put Noah back down and examined the silver band. What could I do with it? I knew there was no way to return it to him. I could save it for Noah, I thought. For now, I opened the jewelry box on the dresser. I found a silver chain and put the ring on it. I put the chain around my neck and tucked the hanging ring under my shirt. The room was officially packed, like no one had ever lived in it, but Phil wasn't gone.

Author's Note: Thanks for reading!